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In a timely episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast for the height of summer, this week features a category that has exploded in beauty: sunscreen. Gone are the days when choices were limited to a few colors like Coppertone and Hawaiian Tropic. Recently, many new brands of sunscreen have been hitting the market, while skin care companies are releasing new SPF products.
One of these new products is the 1-year-old Dune Suncare, which uses a beautiful and fun aesthetic to appeal to men and women of all ages. This week’s episode features the brand’s founders, Emily Doyle, an event designer and marketer, and Mei Kwok, who also creates events and acts as a sought-after DJ. The founders have created the best product for the brand by working with luxury hotels, including QR codes on Kwok’s menu for her makeup campaigns and shooting with top fashion photographers. But its distribution plan is all about availability, with a focus on growing retail businesses including Amazon and Ulta Beauty.
When making sunscreen cosmetics
MK: “We knew that we really wanted a beautiful aesthetic. We all love clean things, like Saturdays in New York. … And we worked with Javas Lehn Studio, which is an art studio that works on Saturdays. And the benchmarks we gave were: It had to be unisex and it had to be white. And we love the beauty of surfboards, but we also wanted to accept the nose, that’s why we chose our oval medicine bottle, which gives you the old Coppertone nostalgic option. [feeling]. And our neon Dune logo is very retro. [Javas Lehn Studio] they nailed it – hit the park – and we love it. Everyone who sees it is very attracted to the bottle and the colors. ”
For not having a population
ED: “When we started raising money, we were meeting with a lot of VC groups before we launched, and a lot of them said, ‘Who are you talking to? You have to be in your own way. You have to choose one or two generations. You have to be Gen Z and millennials, or you can speak mainly to women.’ And we said, ‘No. We’re going to stick to our guns here. We want to talk to as many people as we can.’
On sun care vs skin care
ED: “We think of ourselves as a sun care brand. We’re making SPF products that have amazing skin care benefits. When we talk to investors, they see the whole group saying, ‘There are so many SPF options that consumers can buy.’ But we see that category as really small, compared to, say, the beauty and skin care space. And that’s because, in America, SPF is considered an OTC product. So you have to go through extensive and rigorous testing to be able to follow FDA guidelines, unlike beauty and skin care, unless it has SPF claims. So based on that, it’s time-consuming and expensive to start making SPF from scratch.”
